Visio templates for shop layout

Hello all,
if anyone is interested in a (free) Visio stencil for designing a
woodworking shop, I have created one and posted it at
http://home.comcast.net/~hchute/woodshop_visio.htm
Thanks for all the design ideas from this discussion group.
- Harvey

This is sooo cool. Bravo! I haven't opened it in Visio yet, but your
webpage alone makes me confident it'll work great. I don't even need to do
a new layout for some time but knowing this exists is an inspiration. Well
done.
I've always struggled with Visio -- only got it because a consultant did
flow charts with it and I wanted to be able to edit them One of the
frustrations with it is that it clearly is still designed for a
longstanding installed base going back to V1.0 Commands are not at all
intuitive, IMO. For example: Why are they called "stencils"? IIRC, they
are listed under File, not Edit. Why? Wahts' worse, IMO: If you did not
know they are called stencils, see if you could find anything about such
"thingies" in Help. I couldn't!!! (Of course, there is the
infinitesimally small possibility that it's just me.)
Anyway, again, great job. -- Igor

The 'Stencils' thing is because you used to be able to buy plastic
stencils with cut out shapes for flowcharting, drafting, etc. Looked just
like the Visio stencils, including the color. I think they still sell
them in office supply places. IIRC, I saw some at Staples.
LD

I've still got some of the flowcharting templates - not only for
computers but for punched card machines - and a "slide rule" for
determining throughput on those old machines :-).
It's fun to notice them occasionally and reflect on how much
things have changed in 50 years :-).

Plugboards....
George Shouse http://www.shouses.com
-----------------------------------------------------
Always a fan of the World Champion Los Angeles Lakers
It must be a Purple and Gold thing.
Thanks for honoring the Original Lakers
http://www.shouses.com
ASBNLL FAQs at http://www.asbnll.com /

We once had to wire an IBM407 plugboard to print a list of
missing check numbers. Sort the cardstock checks, run them
through and print the check numbers that weren't there.
I think the boss was joking, but we (myself and one other)
actually managed to get one to work - but only on one
particular machine. It was definitely a thicket of wires - even
after we converted to permanent wires.
Then the CE pulled maintenance and our board didn't work
anymore. We called him back and he said "well, the timing was a
little off". We yelled "put it back!".
For as long as I worked there, the board had a sign that said it
only worked on that machine, and the machine had two signs - one
outside and one inside - that threatened sudden death to any CE
that adjusted the timing :-).

That does sound vaguely familiar, but my recollection is that everything
was a multiple of 75 -- 75, 150, 300, 600, 1200, 2400, 4800, 9600. So, I
won't bet on it, but I'm sticking with my first answer, Regis.

If it was a _real_ teletype -- using 5-bit Baudot code -- it may have been
even slower than that. The _fast_ machines, ie. 60WPM ones, were about 50
baud. I don't remember what the nominal baud rate was for a 45WPM TTY.
Relatively late in history came the 100WPM machines, which were nominal 75
baud. Not too long after those were deployed, ASCII began to make major
inroads. It was 'logically' about the same speed -- 110 baud ASCII is
equivalent to 100WPM -- but the advantages of upper/lower case, and the
elimination of LTRS/FIGS shift codes was compelling.
If it was using ASCII, it was probably 110 baud. 10CPS. About the only
things that ran at 150 baud were some early 'daisy-wheel' based terminals,
and Selectric(TM)-typewriter based units. Selectric hardware maxed out at
150WPM (150 baud); most daisy-wheels were good to 30CPS.
I take that back, a Frieden Flex-o-writer may have been good to 150 baud.
Those were _great_ fun to play with, particularly if you had the unit
with *dual* paper-tape readers, including the random-access 'search' function
on the second tape drive.

We had one of those (w/o the search) as a console to a Readix
computer. It used to freeze up, but if you lifted it an inch or
two and dropped it, it started right back up. Considering that
the computer power supply had an "X" marked on the side where we
had to kick to free a stuck relay, the Flexowritr fit right in
:-).

When you ran paper tape in via an ASR33 teletype, it printed
everything on the tape. Since this was usually binary programs,
you got a lot of junk printed, and a hole in the right hand
position unless you manually returned the carriage ever so
often. "Ghost code" tape only used 4 of the 8 positions and so
didn't print anything. Of course it cut the speed in half too
:-).
When paper tape came out of the punch, you grabbed the beginning
and wound the tape around your fingers in a figure 8 pattern.
The result looked like a bow tie. The reason we did it that way
was that you could then feed it into the reader and it neatly
unwound from the center of the bow tie.
The alternate was to spool it all into a wastebasket and wind it
up when it was done so the beginning was on the outside. But
then you had to mount it on an axle to feed it without twisting.
It's amazing what useless data our brains retain :-).

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